Dad takes a second to process this, then speaks. “Uh, OK, then this is what I want you to do. Put the phone down on the table, run upstairs, knock on the bedroom door and shout to Mommy that Daddy’s car just pulled into the driveway.”

A few minutes later the little girl comes back to the phone. “I did it, Daddy!”

“And what happened, honey?” he asked.

“Well, Mommy got all scared, jumped out of bed with no clothes on and ran around screaming. Then she tripped over the rug, hit her head on the dresser and now she isn’t moving at all!”

“Oh my God! What about your Uncle Paul?”

“He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on, too. He was all scared and he jumped out of the back window and into the swimming pool. But I guess he didn’t know that you took out the water last week to clean it. He hit the bottom of the pool and I think he’s dead.”